Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013

Couple finds Wake Forest is the perfect place for coffee roasting

Brian and Carla Roshitsh decided to move to North Carolina without ever visiting the state.

The couple had spent a couple of decades living in various places around the world while they served in the U.S. Air Force. This time, they were going exactly where they wanted.

“A lot of people we know said great things about living down South, especially North Carolina,” Carla said. “We were looking for a warmer climate when we retired, and we have family on the East Coast, so we thought it would be perfect here.

“We just knew right away, this is home.”

Wake Forest was their favorite place they visited, and since the Roshitshes retired a couple of years ago as Chief Master Sergeants – the highest enlisted rank – they have established roots here.

Late last year they started a business called Bean Therapy that has made them the only local coffee roasters in town. The venture is the realization of a longtime dream of having a local business that gives the opportunity to interact with customers and people from all over the community.

They rent space in a warehouse on Capital Boulevard, so they have room to process the thousands of pounds of coffee that arrive on pallets from all around the world. There they use two antique roasters – one made in 1914 and another from the same era – to heat more than 140 varieties of coffee to perfection. The process is time-consuming, but it yields coffee that is weeks fresher than anything for sale in stores.

“We like the antique roasters because it makes the coffee turn out better,” Carla said. “It takes a lot of patience. You have to wait and check to see if the beans are ready, and no two batches are the exact same.”

Some of the coffee is sold as-is after roasting, and some is flavored. All the coffee is sold whole bean so it retains its freshness (hence the “bean” in the company’s name) and is packaged and displayed for sale in the storefront they opened last weekend at The Cotton Company, 306 S.White St., Wake Forest. They also package and sell tea, as well as a range of related products such as coffee mugs.

The unflavored coffee starts at $9 per pound, depending on where it’s coming from, and goes for as much as $27 per pound if you want beans from Maui. Flavored coffee sells for $11 per pound.

Carla said they are enjoying getting to know more people in the community, but they plan to eventually open a storefront of their own. She envisions setting up their 500-pound roasters in the center of the store so people can watch the roasting process and see what is involved in making coffee turn out right.

“It’s great to finally feel like we’re at home,” she said. “We’ll be here for a long time.”